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i am reading all these interesting posts about new treatments and many of them seem to definitely stop or eardicate HIV. which of them so you think will be available in around 4 - 6 years? thnxs

I think none. While there are a lot of interesting approaches (pls see Technology Review article from a week ago for details), none of them have been tested on humans. My understanding that it takes about 10 years to go from 'proof of concept in a test tube' to actual delivery to the marketplace. This has to do with many stages that a drug has to pass before it is approved:

1) First they have to test that it doesn't harm people. Here they are not even checking if it kills HIV. For example this is the stage of the Opal drug: http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01123915. Individuals will be taking it ALONG with HAART to see if Opal causes any problems. Trial will last until Sep-11.

2) If it does not cause problems - they will test whether the drug can kill HIV. This will probably take a couple years. So we're talking 2014.

3) Then there is another stage - so we are talking 2016 just to finish the clinical trials, assuming that this drug actually works and encounters no problems along the way.

Since individuals can currently live on HAART for many years, the benchmark for any new drug is huge. Ie it has to be better than HAART - which means it will take a long time for the drug company to prove that it is.

I personally am very encouraged by all the developments we are seeing. I scan google news every day for HIV developments and am astounded by the quantity of research brought to bear. However - in terms of the timeline - I think that 10 years is realistic ***IF*** any of the current approaches actually prove effective. And that's a huge leap of faith also.

thank you for your answer. however i see a problem: the answer always seem to be 10 years, but whena few years have passed, then the answer seems to be again ' 10 years' .

then , in terms of improvements or novelties, what could people see within the next 5 years although it is not a definifite treatment? thanks

10 years is the Best Possible Scenario answer. In other words - if there is was a drug that can totally achieve desired results and some scientist knew the formula, it would take 10 years to get it from the concept stage to where it's available to use. I don't know where science was 10 years ago, but I assume that a lot of the approaches that have been tried didn't work out. Hence we are still facing "10 years away".

In terms of what is coming in the next 5 years, I think there will be following improvements in HAART:

1) Issentress may be switched to once a day regimen instead of twice that it is now. It may also be repriced so it's more affordable.2) Atripla would be replaced by Quad. Main effect would be taking away Sustiva component which causes problems for people.3) Some new salvage therapy options for people who have resistance to existing drugs

As someone who is hiv negative, you are not allowed to post in this forum.

If you read the Welcome Thread before posting like you're supposed to, you will have read the following posting guideline:

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